


more than blood

by epsiloneridani



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Clones (Star Wars), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury, Post-Order 66, Tatooine (Star Wars), obi-wan will stop at nothing to save cody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: The suns rise, the suns set, and Obi-Wan carries on. There are no more Jedi; there are no more clones. Almost everyone he ever loved is gone.Everyone, that is, except Cody.Aliit ori'shya tal'din: Family is more than blood.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 317





	more than blood

**Author's Note:**

> Vague references to _the last light_ but you don't have to read it to understand this.
> 
>  _Ner'vod, ratiin._ : my brother, always

The suns rise and the suns set.

That’s all he knows.

Obi-Wan no longer keeps track of time with a chrono. It wouldn’t matter if he wanted to; the sand’s worn away at it over the last year, grinding into the gears until it slowed them to a stop. He tinkered with it uselessly for a few hours then gave up and threw it into a box to be forgotten.

Anakin could fix it, Obi-Wan tells himself while he stirs a new pot of the porridge he’s been eating every day for every meal for the last week. Anakin could fix anything.

But there’s no more Anakin. There’s no more anyone. No more Temple, no more _Negotiator_ ; no more Jedi, no more clones.

No more home.

Almost everyone he ever loved is gone.

By the time he makes himself sit down to eat it, the porridge is stone cold.

The dunes are angry today. There’s a storm brewing in the distance, a choking cloud of sand and grit gathering on the horizon like a hurricane. He has time to make it to his charges, to watch for a little while from the cliffs, and then he’ll have to turn and hurry home before the vortex hits.

Some time is better than none.

The wind is harsh, whipping at his hood. Obi-Wan gathers his cloak more closely around him. Padmé, Owen, and Beru are chasing Luke and Leia around just outside the door. It looks like a game of tag, by the way Beru throws her hands over her eyes and squeals with delight every time one of the twins tugs on her robe and gives her a toothy smile.

Padmé looks up and tries to catch his eye. Obi-Wan turns his face to the desert instead. It’s a rare day that he stays within their sight. Owen, at least, is wary of him, and watches his every move on the infrequent occasion Padmé manages to drag him inside. He makes him uncomfortable, Obi-Wan knows, the mentor of the step-brother Owen met only once and never got the chance to know.

Maybe it’s time to go home.

The storm is closer now. Obi-Wan tugs on his balaclava and goggles and tightens his hood. He underestimated its speed; at this rate, he won’t make it back before it’s here in full force.

Good going, Kenobi.

By the time Obi-Wan stumbles through his door, he’s breathing hard beneath his mask. The wind is howling, rattling the shutters he tightened down to weather the storm. It doesn’t matter how well he seals them; the sand will always find a way inside.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says to the empty darkness, “I believe I understand why you hated this blasted planet.”

It’s too loud to sleep. He sheds the extra layers and seats himself on his sleepmat and tries to meditate but his chest is tight, his breath is short, and he can’t find a center to seek his calm. The Force flows around him in ragged, broken streams. He remembers Jedi Master Tahl and her talk of threading light through the dark cracks of a wound and mending it and making it stronger.

Obi-Wan drops his head into his hands and scrubs at his eyes. Tahl is long dead. The Force is shrouded, shot through with suffocating fear. Healing. Peace.

He just wants to sleep.

Obi-Wan curls up on his mat. His eyes burn, sting, seethe. He swipes at them. His cheeks are wet. It must be the dust.

He wakes to a scream.

His heart is pounding. His tunic is plastered to his back. His palms are slick with sweat. Obi-Wan holds himself completely still, silent but for the rasp of his own breath, and strains for any sign behind the whipping windstorm raging outside. He waits a beat –two.

Nothing.

It might have been a band of Tusken Raiders, bellowing their war shrieks to the sky. Obi-Wan takes a measured breath – another – another. His heart-rate slows and steadies, but the tension only twists tighter in his chest.

Something is desperately wrong.

Obi-Wan throws on his protective gear, clips his saber to his belt, and takes hold of his staff. Then he steps into the tempest.

Here, the howling is muted to a low moan. Obi-Wan grits his teeth and clutches his staff tightly. The Force is just as chaotic as the storm, roiling around him. He stretches into the cacophony and grasps at it – wrestles with it.

Breathe.

Peace.

That way.

Navigating the terrain around his humble homestead should be simple, but with the buffeting wind and the ticking unease (panic, don’t panic, just breathe), he finds himself stumbling instead of striding.

Breathe.

Peace.

Keep on.

He’s not sure how far he’s gone or in what direction home might be. All he knows is the insistent pulse in his chest, deeper than will and well beyond reason.

He has to find him.

Obi-Wan’s so focused on forging the path ahead that he forgets the one beneath his feet. His boot catches on something jagged and jutting and he sprawls forward, flailing for balance until he finds it again and he can carefully lower himself down. He pats around until his hand hits something hard. He brushes the sand back and curls his fingers under the edge to pry it up.

His blood runs cold.

It’s a stormtrooper helmet – and it’s covered in blood.

Obi-Wan sets it back down. The rest of the remains are just beyond him; in between the scorching gusts, he can make out a gruesome trail. Something much more vicious than a Tusken Raider was responsible for this stormtrooper’s untimely end.

It couldn’t have been one of the Tatooine beasts; the storm has sent them all to shelter.

His heart turns violently. There’s a sudden pulse of white light in his mind, like the sun forcing its way through the night in stubborn, shattered beams. It’s battered, it’s broken, it does not belong – and yet. His breath catches in his throat. He wants to reach back, to seize that light, but as soon as he feels it, it fades, fades, and blinks away.

In its place is a ferocious terror. It swells up until it chokes him but it’s not his, he’s not afraid, the Force is flowing through him, soothing and cool.

It’s not his fear, but he knows it well.

Obi-Wan takes a measured breath.

He hears the scream again. It’s ragged, heart-rending – and then it’s gone. In this wind-wracked hellscape, it’s impossible to tell where it came from. Obi-Wan slows to a stop; he wants to charge into the chaos and rage through the desert until he finds the source. He has to find the source.

He has to find him.

Obi-Wan gathers himself.

Breathe.

Peace.

Keep on.

The further he goes, the greater the terror grows. It tugs at him like a gravity well, dragging him into the gaping black maw. He should breathe through it and press it away; instead, he sinks into it and clings to the dread tendrils like a lifeline.

It’s his only connection.

He has to find him.

If it is him.

There are five more bodies strewn about, just as mangled as the first. Obi-Wan steps carefully by them.

He almost runs headlong into the ship’s hull.

It looks to be a small freighter; the plating is pocked and marred, like it’s been through battle after battle without undergoing any significant repair. It’s definitely not Imperial, unless they’re inexplicably attacking their own men now.

Even with the storm, the ramp is down. Maybe it was so they could dispose of the bodies. Obi-Wan makes himself wait a beat – makes himself hold and feel – makes himself breathe.

Nothing.

He moves up the ramp, swift and silent, and presses himself to the wall. The ship’s stench penetrates the balaclava, washing over him in a putrid wave. His eyes water. He tugs his goggles down onto his neck and blinks past the burning sting.

He can almost hear Anakin: _Ew, what died in here?_

The answer, of course, seems to be ‘anything and everything.’ Obi-Wan makes a face at the suspicious smears. The floor is treacherously slippery beneath his boots.

There are voices coming from up ahead. Obi-Wan moves soundlessly to the door and risks a look around the corner.

There are six individuals standing in a semicircle around a prisoner. In the dim lighting, it takes him a moment to realize that it’s an Imperial stormtrooper, suspended with his arms above his head and the tips of his boots just barely brushing the floor. His helmet and torso plating are gone; his head droops to his heaving chest. There’s dark blood caked on his face.

It’s impossible. He’s long been lost. All Obi-Wan has left of him are the shards of a shattered Force bond.

But that scar is unmistakable.

Obi-Wan’s heart twists.

Cody.

The group is comprised of three humans, two Trandoshans, and a Zabrak. They’re all in grubby garb that, when clean, probably looks more like the kind of gear a scavenger or bounty hunter would wear. As it is, their clothes more closely resemble butchers’ smocks.

“Why’s it like you so much?” one of the humans asks, clutching Cody’s face in his meaty grip and jerking his head up. There’s a low growl from somewhere out of Obi-Wan’s sight and he realizes with a sinking feeling that there’s one more member in this merry band of murder-happy malcontents.

The vornskr slinks into the light. It’s long and broad, a slithering, inky, midnight creature with vicious, gleaming fangs and boring yellow eyes. It’s enormous, much larger than an average member of its species; it would easily stand at waist height with Obi-Wan. By the glistening sheen to its teeth, he no longer has to guess at what might have killed the stormtroopers.

Cody rattles a wheezing gasp. His chest rises and falls in rapid succession. “I don’t know,” he rasps. His voice is thick. He coughs harshly. “I don’t _know_.”

Obi-Wan does. The vornskr are themselves sensitive to the Force, and therefore naturally drawn to prey strong with it. The other stormtroopers would have been negligible targets, in comparison: more like obstacles than an end goal. It’s Cody that would have been its focus – the prey it would play with before it went in for the kill.

And now, Obi-Wan may be on its radar as well.

 _Shab_ is the correct expletive for this particular situation.

“’s the only reason you’re still alive,” the man hisses, and yanks Cody forward by his neck. Cody gives a choked cry. A cruel smile curves the man’s mouth. “We could feed you to it right now, though, huh? Just like the rest of them. Were those brothers?”

Something stronger than rage and darker than hate surges over Obi-Wan like a wave. He almost staggers for the force of it. Cody’s features twist; his breathing’s faster, faster, coming in desperate gulps. There are no tears on his face.

He’s laughing. It’s hysterical: a manic convulsion that rips through his limbs and seizes his spine. The man freezes.

“Do it,” Cody hisses. It’s breathless and broken. His lips curl back into a mocking sneer. His eyes are wild. “Do it.”

The man stands motionless. Around Cody, the Force is ruin.

The vornskr howls and pads toward the door. Obi-Wan huddles as far back as he can manage without losing sight of Cody. The others turn in time with the man.

“Must’a missed one,” he mutters, slowly drawing his blaster from the holster on his thigh. He pats Cody’s cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back.”

Cody’s head drops.

Obi-Wan clutches his staff tightly. He should turn and retreat and draw them out. In this cramped corridor, they can’t all rush him at once, but that’s the only advantage he has. They could just shoot him from afar and be done with it if he doesn’t dodge fast enough.

He can’t draw his saber at all.

There’s a low moan from the detainment chamber. Obi-Wan’s heart is in his throat. His hand raises – reaches – stops. He wants to press _It’s me, I’m here, you’re not alone_ , but he remembers Utapau: the blast and the fall and later, Bail Organa telling him about Fives and Tup and the control chips.

No, he has to go.

Obi-Wan disappears into the storm, pressing a hand to the side of the ship and inching so he’s just beyond their view when they come barreling through the hatch. His pursuers stop on the ramp; he can hear them bickering, debating which way to turn or whether following him is worth it at all.

Reason does not seem to be winning out.

“We’re not just gonna let ‘em get away,” the man decides. Maybe he’s the leader. Maybe he’s just the biggest bully. He hefts his blaster higher. “He can’t have gotten that far.”

It’s not the hunters that concern Obi-Wan. It’s the vornskr. It lifts its nose to the wind and sniffs desperately, then whines and paces anxiously at the bottom of the ramp.

“Quiet,” the Zabrak snaps. “We’re trying to think.”

“No, it’s got something. Follow it.”

“In this wind?”

“Just do what I tell you.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and memorizes the hull beneath his hands, the way the Force pulses from inside it in bleeding waves. Then he gathers the Force around him like a cloak and leaps.

The vornskr picks up on the movement immediately, charging into the darkness after him. Obi-Wan leads it in wide, looping circles, crossing back time after time until he can feel the group going to pieces and scattering across the dunes. Savage confusion rolls toward him, rippling through the wind, weaker and weaker as it dissipates into disorientation.

They’re hopelessly lost.

The vornskr isn’t.

Obi-Wan barely has time to get his staff up to deflect the snarling maw, striking the creature across its muzzle and rolling to the side to dodge its lashing tail; the appendage is pointed with a venomous tip. If it hits him, it’ll paralyze him, and he’ll be easy prey.

It’s a brutal, vicious dance. Obi-Wan skids away and the vornskr presses forward, gnashing its teeth. Its teeth glance against his arm; there’s a rush of white-hot pain.

Obi-Wan stumbles, fumbling back, just out of its reach. Patience, they told him at the Temple, but right now patience is the furthest thing from his mind.

Cody doesn’t have much time.

They’ll never see his saber through the storm. The hilt is in his hand. His finger is on the switch.

It hums a cool blue.

Calm washes through him. The vornskr lunges. Obi-Wan holds. At the last second, he twists out of the way and brings the blade down with all his strength. It cleaves through the beast. The vornskir looses a ragged scream that trails off into a mournful wail. It rattles, it heaves, and then it lays still.

The saber hisses off. Obi-Wan hangs the hilt on his belt and makes himself take a moment.

Breathe.

Peace.

That way.

The hunters haven’t made it back to the ship; he has no intention of waiting for them to manage it. Obi-Wan hurries to the detainment chamber.

Cody’s so still.

Obi-Wan releases his wrists and catches him, easing him down to rest against his chest. “Cody,” he calls softly, and gets a groan. His throat is tight. “Cody, are you still with me?”

Cody rattles a wet gurgle and coughs. “Ben,” he murmurs, dazed. He sounds delirious. His eyes are unfocused.

Obi-Wan feels a rush of warmth flood his veins. Ben. Not _traitor_. Not _Jedi_. No, only the nickname Cody gave him, all those years ago.

Ben.

“It’s me,” Obi-Wan says desperately. “I’m here.”

Cody doesn’t answer him. Obi-Wan shrugs out of his cloak and wraps it carefully around him, tucking it over Cody’s mouth and nose and arranging it to shade his eyes like a shield. Then he lifts him and cradles him to his chest.

Step by treacherous step, Obi-Wan makes his way home. Dimly, he realizes that it’s much further than he thought.

Even without the wind, he shouldn’t have been able to hear Cody scream.

The storm is still raging when he stumbles into his kitchen and settles Cody on the sleep-couch nearby. He barely stirs.

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan says, though he’s not sure Cody’s conscious enough to hear him. Only now does he realize that Cody must have shaved his head recently; he has only a thin layer of fuzz on his scalp.

Obi-Wan rushes to the cabinet for medical supplies, then cleans and bandages his charge as well as he can. The bodysuit is well past its prime, so slowly and carefully, he eases Cody into a spare set of his own clothes. They hang more loosely on his frame than Obi-Wan thinks they should. Cody is built more broadly, so the shirt should have a closer fit, but it falls in soft waves instead. Obi-Wan frowns.

Cody’s face shows it too. His jaw is sharper; his cheeks are gaunter. There are dark circles beneath his eyes.

“When was the last time you actually ate something substantial?” Obi-Wan mutters, and covers Cody with a thin blanket.

His medical droid is ancient, but functional. Obi-Wan can’t remember the last time he needed to use it. There was that incident with the krayt dragon – so many days ago – but even then he’d more or less tended to his wounds himself.

“B2,” Obi-Wan greets. The droid jolts; its limbs shift jerkily as it powers on. Its eyes hum a dim gold.

“I see you have finally deemed me worthy to provide treatment,” B2 says. If it was human, it would huff. “I am honored.”

He forgot B2 had enough attitude to have rivaled Sol.

“Your treatment of the patient is adequate,” B2 proclaims, when its scan has been completed. “I am surprised, but he appears to still be living even after your efforts.”

“Bleeding,” Obi-Wan says, more desperately than he means to. The droid stares at him. Obi-Wan sighs. “Does he have any internal bleeding?”

“Some,” B2 says. “However, you have already applied bacta to the affected sites. That should be sufficient.”

“So we wait.”

“Healing demands time. And patience is a virtue,” B2 says. “Or so I am told.”

Obi-Wan wonders by whom and decides it doesn’t matter and he doesn’t care. “Thank you, B2,” he says.

“Bleeding.”

“What?”

One cold hand latches around his left wrist. He remembers the vornskr’s teeth. “Bleeding,” B2 repeats. “This must cease.”

“I can—”

“Are you a medical droid?” B2 asks. Its head cracks to the side with a disturbing mechanical whir. Obi-Wan’s reminded of Sol again. _Sorry,_ sir _, excuse me,_ sir _, but are you the kriffing medic? I didn’t think so. Sit your_ shebs _down_.

“No,” Obi-Wan says haltingly. “I am not.”

He submits to the treatment, then powers B2 down. “Perhaps I should rename you to Sol,” he says, then snorts.

Sol would have hated that.

Obi-Wan takes up a vigil at Cody’s side. Cody’s restless. He thrashes weakly. Sweat beads on his brow. Obi-Wan presses a hand to his forehead and wills cool and calm to him.

For a little while, it works.

Then the nightmares start.

Cody screams for so many of his brothers, but the name he cries the most is Rex’s. Sometimes he whimpers and pleads for the others in his command class.

And sometimes, he asks for Obi-Wan.

“I’m here, _ner’vod_ ,” Obi-Wan whispers, cradling his face in his hands and pressing their foreheads together. The Force pulses through the dark void around Cody, strong – light. It’s suffocating, to breathe in that darkness, but Obi-Wan persists.

 _I’m here_ , he says. _I’m here. You’re safe. You’re not alone_.

For three days, Cody tosses and turns and mumbles the names of his dead. He has moments of consciousness, but none of lucidity. Obi-Wan never strays too far from his side. It’s on the third night, when Obi-Wan is holding him still and repeating his mantra, that his thumb brushes against a small ridge on his scalp.

It’s a freshly healed incision, just beginning to scar.

The suns rise, the suns set, and Cody suffers.

The dawn is just barely beginning to break the horizon on the fourth day when Cody stirs. He gives a low groan. His eyes struggle open.

Obi-Wan’s still clutching one of his hands between both of his own.

“Ben,” Cody says. His voice cracks. A tiny, sleepy smile quirks the corners of his mouth.

“I’m here,” Obi-Wan says. Cody moves to sit up. Obi-Wan stops him with a gentle touch. “Stay down,” he says. “You’ve taken quite a beating. I’ve healed what I can, but you need to rest.”

Cody stares at him. His eyes blow wide. His face goes blank. For a second, he stops breathing.

“Cody?”

“Obi-Wan,” he croaks, and shoots upright before Obi-Wan can stop him. His face contorts. He lets out a cry, then doubles over and clutches his ribs. His breath comes in harsh, heaving gasps.

Obi-Wan grasps his shoulders and holds him steady until he the shaking ceases. “Obi-Wan,” Cody repeats, like a plea. Tears well in his eyes.

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan says.

“I’m sorry.”

“Cody, it wasn’t your fault—”

“I tried to fight it. I tried,” Cody explodes. His voice breaks; his words tumble over one another in a rush. “I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t _stop_ —”

The tears spill down his cheeks. Obi-Wan’s heart twists.

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan says again, and pulls him close. Cody buries his face in his chest. “It’s all right, Cody. I’m here.”

“I just wanted it to _stop_ ,” Cody whispers. His voice catches. A wracking sob rips its way out of his throat. His shoulders quake. Obi-Wan clasps a hand over the back of his neck and brushes a gentle touch there, over – over.

When Cody finally stills, it’s because he’s gone to sleep. Obi-Wan shifts him down to rest more comfortably, then tucks the blanket around him.

“I’m here,” he says, and presses calm to him in a wave. It cuts through the suffocating shadow. Cody relaxes; his features smooth. “I’m here.”

For the first time, Cody sleeps through the night.

Cody wakes before the suns, pushing himself up on his elbows and scrubbing at his face. He looks briefly disoriented; then his eyes lock on Obi-Wan, hovering. “Morning,” Cody mutters, toying with the blanket. He strains to see in the dim light. “Is it morning?”

“I have ration bars and I have porridge,” Obi-Wan says, instead of answering. “Which do you prefer?”

Cody stares at him blankly. “Porridge,” he decides at last. His voice is raspy. He clears his throat. “Thank you.”

Cody doesn’t seem inclined to move while the water heats or while Obi-Wan stirs the meal mixture in. When he reaches for a bowl, however, there’s a decisive creak.

“Stay there,” Obi-Wan says mildly, without turning around. He ladles the porridge into the rough-hewn bowl and crosses the space to press the vessel into Cody’s hands.

“Smells better than rations,” Cody mumbles, and picks at it with the spoon.

“Imperial rations have a smell?”

Cody snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “They smell like chemicals. Taste like them, too.”

The rations on the _Negotiator_ weren’t much to speak of, but at least their faint flavor didn’t resemble cleaning supplies. “I’m sorry.”

Cody shrugs. He’s stirring the porridge in slow, rhythmic circles. “How long have you been out here?” he asks.

Obi-Wan pauses. He knew the exact date, once; now, every day is a blur. “Long enough,” he says. “Eat your food.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan says honestly. “How long has it been since…”

He trails off. Since Order Sixty-Six. Since he lost his family and his home.

Since four words took Cody’s brothers and his choice.

Cody’s eyes shutter. He turns his gaze away.

Cody takes to shuffling around the small house on his own with one arm bracing his ribs and the other clutching at the wall for support. He doesn’t ask about his new clothes or how Obi-Wan survived or what he’s doing on this forsaken planet.

He doesn’t say anything at all.

Obi-Wan gives him his space for the rest of the day, then most of the one that follows. By the incision’s state of scarring, Cody must have removed his chip relatively recently. Surely he needs time to readjust and cope.

But there’s only so much time Obi-Wan can give him.

He approaches slowly.

“The bacta patches need to be changed,” Obi-Wan says carefully, and holds up the box of medical supplies. Cody glances up at him. He’s seated on the edge of the sleep couch with his arms wrapped around himself, as if, despite the desert blazing outside, he’s too cold.

“Oh,” Cody says. He straightens. There’s pain in his eyes. Obi-Wan gives him a shadow of a smile.

“It might be easier if you let me help,” Obi-Wan says. “The ones on your back may be difficult for you to reach with your injuries.”

Cody makes a disgruntled noise and shrugs out of his shirt. Obi-Wan eases down beside him. In the light, it’s easier to see the sharp lines of his ribs and spine. There’s lithe muscle rippling through his shoulders and back, but it strains against the scarred skin, taut and veined.

“You haven’t been eating enough,” Obi-Wan says.

“They don’t feed us enough.”

Obi-Wan pauses, fresh bacta patch in hand. Cody glances over his shoulder at him and quirks a wry smile that doesn’t feel right and certainly doesn’t reach his eyes. “Everyone gets the same ration portions,” he says. “No exceptions.”

“They didn’t account for your metabolism, then.”

“They want to phase me and my brothers out,” Cody says, but Obi-Wan imagines what he means is _decommission_. “Why would they care?”

He wants to say _I’m sorry_ , but apologies can’t heal this. “I see,” Obi-Wan says neutrally, and turns his attention back to the task at hand.

“What are you doing out here?” Cody asks suddenly. “Why Tatooine?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Cody says. “I just…”

“I’m not hiding.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I have a purpose here,” Obi-Wan says. “That’s all.”

“Can I ask what it is?”

“You can.”

“But you won’t tell me.” There’s a note of deep grief to Cody’s voice. He tries to cover it with teasing. It’s badly done.

“Just rest,” Obi-Wan says at last, and helps Cody tug his shirt back on. Cody doesn’t meet his eyes. “For now, just…rest.”

And Cody does.

* * *

Again and again, it’s the silence that strikes him.

Cody’s never been an overly chatty person, but he’s never been the quiet type, either. Now, when he’s not sleeping or shuffling restlessly around the house, nearly doubled over, he’s giving one-word answers or grunts of affirmation. At first, Obi-Wan thought it was the pain; no one wants to speak a full sentence when it hurts to breathe.

But as the suns rise and set, it’s all too clear that isn’t the case.

“You need to eat,” Obi-Wan says, when he’s watched Cody go two days without picking at his ration bars at all. Obi-Wan left a small pile of them on the sleep-couch, which is where Cody is when he’s not perched on the stoop, hunched over and staring down the horizon. His wounds are a little more healed now, but not nearly enough that he should be moving around so much.

If, indeed, he should be moving around at all. B2 doesn’t think so. Cody does. Obi-Wan doesn’t have it in him to argue.

“Not hungry,” Cody says. He has his hands folded in his lap. His shoulders coil.

Obi-Wan dares ease down on the couch beside him. The Force moves around Cody in jagged, sinusoidal spikes. Anger. Pain. Fear.

Hate.

“Don’t,” Cody says tersely. “Don’t give me that _shabla_ calm again.”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t want to be calm,” Cody says. His hands shake.

Obi-Wan’s quiet for a beat. “All right,” he says. “I won’t.”

“Thank you,” Cody says at last. His voice is choked. “For helping me.”

“Of course.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut. “Why not?”

“You didn’t know,” Cody says, and taps the ridge on his skull. “That I didn’t have my chip anymore. What the hell were you thinking?”

Obi-Wan considers him for a moment. “I couldn’t leave you to die,” Obi-Wan says. Despite his best effort, his voice trembles. He spreads his hands before him helplessly. “What would you have done in my place?”

Cody stares at him. Something in him deflates.

“The tactically sound thing,” Cody grumbles, but there’s no bite to it. Obi-Wan gives him a lopsided smile.

“Like you did on Mygeeto?”

“Mygeeto was an _osik’la_ campaign and you know it.”

“You saved my life.”

Cody snorts. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders eases. “How’d you find me?” he asks.

Sunlight. Bright white. Shattered beams.

“There seems to be something of a bond remnant,” Obi-Wan says. “To be blunt, I heard you scream.”

“Oh.” Cody chuffs a mirthless laugh. “Sorry.”

“Do you have any idea who they were?” Obi-Wan asks. “Your captors.”

Cody makes a face. “Bounty hunters,” he says. “My squad was assigned to patrol the badlands. The moisture farmers don’t like it. Someone somewhere found some _diniise_ willing to take a job that involved exterminating Imperial troopers.”

Lunatics indeed: one or two stormtroopers going missing every now and then wouldn’t draw much attention, but entire squads vanishing one after the other would bring a focused lens of fatal ire.

“Well,” Obi-Wan says, “they seemed to like you enough to keep you mostly alive.”

“It’s because that _shabla_ …dog didn’t kill me right away,” Cody mutters. “I don’t know why.”

“It was Force-sensitive and it thought you were worth a chase.”

Cody turns to him and arches one eyebrow elegantly. “Was?”

“Was.”

Cody shakes his head, then winces. “What happened to your arm?”

“It got a lucky shot in.”

“Did you change the bacta patch?”

“I will once you eat something.”

Cody sighs and picks up a ration bar. Obi-Wan stares at him expectantly. He sighs again, louder this time, then unwraps it and takes an obnoxious bite.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says with a gracious smile, and reaches for the medical supplies. Cody takes them from him.

“I can manage,” Obi-Wan says.

“I know.” Cody’s already unpacking the necessary patches. “Let me.”

It’s only fair. Obi-Wan sighs and holds out his arm. “If you insist.”

Cody changes the dressing carefully. When he’s finished, he meticulously packs the supplies back into their box and sets it aside. The suns are just beginning to set; they cast the space in warm rays.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Obi-Wan says quietly.

“You want to know how I got rid of the chip.” When Obi-Wan flinches, Cody shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s all right. It’s a fair question.”

Obi-Wan waits.

“Sol,” Cody says, and chuffs a disbelieving laugh. “The paranoid _di’kut_ had a droid remove his chip a long time before the order ever went down. He never told me why. I didn’t ask. I just know that every clone that ever came through his doors left without their control chip.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It was,” Cody says. His hands curl into fists in his lap. He takes a measured breath.

There’s a sinking feel curling deep in Obi-Wan’s chest. “He got caught.”

“Yeah,” Cody says, a breathless whisper like an explosion. “He got caught. They took him away. I don’t know what happened to him.”

There’s bleeding guilt in his voice. “It’s not your fault.”

“He told me not to save him. He wanted me to promise him,” Cody says, and drags a hand across his scalp. His voice is tight. “And I did.”

Obi-Wan rests a hand on the couch between them. Cody’s fingers curl around his wrist.

“He purged his patient records so they couldn’t track who still had the chips and who didn’t, but enough people knew I’d been in his medbay that they packed me up and shipped me here. Anyone someone remembered Sol treating got sent _here_.”

 _Were those brothers?_ That terrible wave: darker than rage, stronger than hate. Obi-Wan’s throat constricts. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “Cody, I’m so sorry.”

Cody blinks fiercely. He opens his mouth to speak.

Nothing comes out.

They sit in silence under the suns’ bleeding red rays. The room dims to darkness.

Cody still hasn’t let go.

“You should rest,” Obi-Wan says, and Cody nods jerkily. His breathing is shallow.

“Right,” he says. “Right.”

He curls up, then, and Obi-Wan steps away. He should go to his room, ease down onto his sleepmat, and get some rest himself, but something keeps him tethered to the kitchen instead. He finds himself hunched over the table, half-asleep with his head pillowed on his arms, just so he can keep Cody nearby.

Sometime after the stars begin to twinkle in the sky, he risks a look over.

Cody isn’t sleeping. He isn’t even trying. He’s flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with his eyes wide open.

“Can’t sleep?” Obi-Wan asks.

Cody doesn’t answer him. Obi-Wan frowns and moves swiftly to his side. Cody doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are unmoving – unblinking.

The suffocating darkness around him is dulled, shot through with streams of light. “Cody?” Obi-Wan calls softly.

Cody starts, then pushes himself up on an elbow. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just…listening.”

Obi-Wan tilts his head to the side.

“The chip,” Cody says quietly, swinging his legs over the side. He pats the space beside him; Obi-Wan obliges. “It cut off my access to the Force. Now that it’s gone, I have the Force back. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

Cody seems to be searching for the words. “It feels different,” he says slowly. He frowns, then looks to Obi-Wan. There’s pleading in his face. “Darker. And I know why. It just – hurts.”

Obi-Wan remembers Utapau: that pulsing tidal wave of terror that washed over him: those million screams. The Jedi fell, the Jedi died, but the clones were terrified and locked screaming inside their own minds.

So many of them still are.

“I have to find them,” Cody blurts. “My brothers. I have to find them. As many of them as I can.”

The pang of panicked loss he feels is selfish – wrong. _Stay_. Obi-Wan shoves it down violently. “You will,” he says, and puts a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “I promise. But for now – just heal.”

Cody nods, then takes a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What about the bond?” Cody asks. “You said there was a remnant. Does that mean it’s not…”

Broken. Shattered. Gone. “Maybe,” Obi-Wan says softly. “It’s possible.”

“Can it be fixed?” Cody asks, strained. His hands clench in his lap. He takes a measured breath, then taps his temple. “It doesn’t – it doesn’t feel right.”

“In time, perhaps,” Obi-Wan says. His connection to Anakin wasn’t just severed, it was seared completely away. It feels like a scar in his mind. Losing the bond with Cody was different: it was there one moment, and the next – writhing and roiling, suffocating beneath some dark and terrible weight. He hadn’t realized until later that those last heaving gasps had been Cody fighting a brutal, losing battle – giving him the precious seconds that saved his life.

If they’d fired one beat earlier, Obi-Wan would have been blown apart.

The chip is gone – and so is the weight. Maybe it was never broken at all – just crushed away.

“Good,” Cody says, a muted whisper. “That’s good.”

Obi-Wan wraps an arm around him. Cody huddles close and drops his head to Obi-Wan’s shoulder. His breathing steadies; his heartbeat slows.

“ _Ner’vod, ratiin_ ,” Obi-Wan says, an echo of an old ghost. Cody’s breath hitches. His palm presses to Obi-Wan’s heart.

“ _Ner’vod, ratiin._ ”

\--


End file.
